I read recently an article by Dr. Francine Shapiro concerning combat veterans suffering from untreated PTSD, the impact this had on their children and the hope of undoing or preventing such damage in the future because of a psychotherapy called EMDR.

My dad was a combat veteran.  During WWII he commanded a B-29 Superfortress on bombing missions over Japan.  On one of those missions dad’s plane was shot down and they had to ditch (a controlled landing of a distressed aircraft on water) into the Sea of Japan.  One of his men was killed on impact; the rest escaped as the plane sank.

In the distance, as Japanese destroyers were growing ever closer while executing a patterned search for the downed fliers, dad and his crew were silently spirited to safety, below the surface of the water, when they were rescued by the submarine USS Ronquil.  Meanwhile, back on the base, back at Isley Field on the Island of Saipan, dad’s longtime regular crew, flying that one mission aboard another B-29 to help orient a new pilot, crashed on takeoff killing all aboard. [Read more…]